Urban Architectural Studies: Paris

PARIS is a logical target for today's urbanists. New regional schemes for the Paris area are constantly challenged by historic precedents. The books here cited reflect the current focus on urban studies, and the interlocking with architecture of economic development, social purpose, and political history. All these disciplines converge to view the city as a biological organism, and its formation, growth, and decline as part of a natural process. Concentrating on a historical overview, these works are excellent accompaniments to the wealth of architectural tracts now appearing devoted to specific periods of the vernacular in Paris, such as the Stately Mansions of Michel Gallet or the more humble Demeures Parisiennes of Jean Pierre Babelon and Gallet's recent Paris Domestic Architecture of the Eighteenth Century. The studies under consideration range from an atlas guide to a documented dissertation, Couperie's breezy but brilliant text spanning two thousand years of Parisian history without a footnote, to Sutcliffe's detailed examination of the obsolescence of central Paris via an enormous